Texas Tech basketball: Why the Red Raiders lost to TCU

The Red Raiders were unable to get to the free-throw line

Prior to the game, we discussed why the free-throw line could be critical in this game.  That proved to be true but not how we imagined.

TCU came into the game the worst free-throw shooting team in the Big 12 and having shot the least free-throws in the league.  Meanwhile, Tech was second in the conference in both categories.

Tuesday night, TCU went to the line 21 times, almost seven more trips than they had been averaging.  Though they went just 11-21 (52.4%), they still held an edge over Tech, which went 6-8.

The Red Raiders missed a huge opportunity to neutralize the Frogs’ hot shooting by holding a decided advantage at the line.  TCU did their part to help by missing 10 free throws so if the Red Raiders had reached their average of 20.8 free throws per game and made 75%, which they’ve averaged thus far, Tech would have had a 15-11 edge in this game.

While that would not have been enough to make up for the entire deficit, think about how important extra trips to the line could have been during the big TCU run in the second half.  Rather than settling for jumpers, Tech could have gone to the line to answer Bane’s onslaught and helped quell the momentum in the arena.

But instead, it looked like Beard’s team didn’t know how to respond when it got hit in the mouth by a team it arrogantly thought it was much better than.  When Beard said that TCU was tougher than his team, that was true not only on the boards but at the line because only one team was willing to work hard enough to get there and it wasn’t Tech.